During a typical office visit to a physician or other medical professional (hereinafter “healthcare professional”), whether in an office or a hospital, a separate patient chart is created for each new patient. This chart lists all the relevant information related to that patient such as medical history and specific medical needs. The chart typically includes other pertinent information such as the patient's personal identification information such as their name, address, billing information, emergency contact, etc. Indeed, the chart is the primary document maintained in most medical arenas. During subsequent visits this chart is pulled and handed to the healthcare professional for contemporaneously taking notes and making a record of discussions and advice given to the patient. The chart also typically contains information related to prescriptions written by the healthcare professional during particular visits. Since the chart is in paper form, it is handed back and forth between assistants and secretaries as part of the patient care process. Furthermore, such a chart may be handed to or passed through the accounting department for proper insurance and patient billing.
Significant drawbacks related to these paper charts are encountered on a daily basis in numerous healthcare facilities. For example, charts are often lost or misplaced. A lost or misplaced chart creates a very difficult situation because the re-creation of such information is nearly impossible. Other times the situation may be time critical such that re-creation of the information would simply take too long. Thus, a lost chart is not only time consuming but potentially dangerous as well.
Another significant problem associated with the paper charts relates to the legibility of the handwritten notes. Indeed, failure to accurately read a medical chart may result in the improper prescription of certain drugs, which can be very dangerous. Double-checking such issues requires the transfer of the paper chart to another person for verification.
In other situations, such as where a nurse is caring for a patient in a hospital environment, the doctor in charge may want or need to understand the status of the patient. In order to do so, the doctor must either call or talk to the attending nurse or physically go to the location of the patient's chart (which is typically in or near the room in which the patient is staying), and examine the chart in person. This is unsatisfactory in many cases when the nurse cannot be reached and the doctor is far from the hospital or the particular patient.
Furthermore, although not often recognized as a problem, the paper charts may in fact aid in the transmission of diseases as the charts are reused and passed from room to room without disinfection. The inadvertent transmission of diseases is, of course, a dangerous situation.
Yet another drawback associated with paper patient charts relates to the difficulties in handling administrative tasks when dealing with a paper chart. For example, when a healthcare professional prescribes a certain medication, a nurse often assesses whether the medication is on-hand, especially in a hospital environment. In such a case, the nurse typically must decipher the handwriting on the chart and then manually examine the inventory, whether the inventory is managed electronically or not. That is, even if the inventory is stored and maintained on a computer system, that system must still be accessed and checked by the nurse in order to determine whether the medicine is on-hand. Given the potential for error in reading the handwriting or managing the inventory, the present system using paper patient charts is unsatisfactory.
These problems all directly impact the safety and satisfaction of patients and the care that they are given and it is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.